LANDSCAPE artist James Naughton will soon be fulfiling a dream to follow in the footsteps of inspirational 19th century painter Thomas Moran.

Mr Naughton will be embarking on of a journey of lifetime to America to retrace the steps of the celebrated American landscape painter.

Both artists were born in Bolton and Mr Naughton still lives in Heaton.

Bolton Art Gallery displays a collection of Moran’s work, including Nearing Camp On The Upper Colorado River Wyoming. It was acquired by the gallery in 1996.

And it is this acquistion, along with Moran’s links to Bolton, that inspired Mr Naughton.

He said: “Thomas Moran’s paintings have been a constant inspiration to me throughout my life, and it has been a long held ambition of mine to make the same journey and to experience the same landscapes as Moran.

“I will be sharing my thoughts and feelings about the whole project on my blog — naughtonandmoran.com’.”

With the support of Bol- ton Library and Museum Services and Arts Council England, the former Sharples School pupil has now realised his ambition as he will spend the next two weeks retracing Moran’s steps.

The journey will culminate in the production of an original body of work to be exhibited next year at the Bolton gallery.

He will be accompanied by photographer Andrew Hodgson who is originally from Bolton and now lives in Anglesey.

Mr Naughton will visit the sites of Moran’s most iconic paintings in Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton range in the Grand Teton national park, ending his journey at the site of the Green River in South Wyoming.

He said: “I am delighted and humbled that the gallery has agreed to exhibit the resulting body of work alongside the works of Moran in a large-scale exhibition in the main gallery space in March, 2014.

“My intention is to create a strong sense of our shared tradition, with an emphasis on how different artists relate their experiences into pieces of art, thus communicating a unique vision.”

The exhibition will be the most ambitious the borough’s museum has staged with a contemporary artist in the last decade. It is designed to give visitors an opportunity to learn more about both Moran’s paintings and Mr Naughton’s.

Mr Naughton, who is married to Rachel and has a son Tom, aged 10, said: “I would like to have taken both of them with me but it is work and my wife has been really supportive.

“I hope the exhibition will inspire young painters in the same way that Moran has inspired me through-out my life,” he said adding that the exhibition would be one of the biggest and one of the most important he has staged.

Mr Naughton said: “Having the exhibition in Bolton is absolutely fantastic.

“I have had exhibitions in various parts of the country and am known in other parts of the country, but in Bolton I am relatively unknown.

“Having had a lot support from friends and family in Bolton, who are sometimes not able to travel to see the exhibitions, they can see what I do.

“It is like coming home.”

Moran was one of the first landscape painters in America and his work was said to be pivotal in Yellowstone becoming the world’s first national park.